Manage virtual machines and containers
Hyper-V virtual machines
Generation 2 VMs use UEFI firmware and Secure Boot, need a synthetic network adapter, and cannot boot from an emulated IDE device; generation 1 VMs provide legacy BIOS and IDE support. VHDX disks support up to 64 TB, whereas VHD tops out far lower, so choose VHDX for anything modern.
Checkpoints come in two flavors. Production checkpoints use VSS inside the guest and capture disk state only; they are the default on current Windows Server and suit production workloads. Standard checkpoints capture disk plus memory state and are best for development. Dynamic memory exposes startup, minimum, and maximum memory plus a buffer and weight; Smart Paging is used only when a VM restarts and the host cannot satisfy its startup memory. Nested virtualization requires MAC spoofing and dynamic memory disabled.
Live migration moves a running VM with no downtime and needs shared storage; live migration with storage migration moves the files too. Hyper-V Replica asynchronously replicates to a standby host over HTTPS. Failover clustering with Cluster Shared Volumes provides high availability, and cluster OS rolling upgrade lets you upgrade node operating systems without downtime.
Containers
Windows Server containers with process isolation share the host kernel and require a compatible host and container build; Hyper-V isolation gives the container its own kernel and allows older or mismatched images.
Traps
MAC spoofing, DHCP guard, router guard, and extended port ACLs are per-adapter settings. PowerShell Direct reaches a VM without any network connectivity but needs host-side credentials.
Rule of thumb
Production checkpoint equals VSS, disk only, supported for production; standard checkpoint equals memory plus disk. For containers: matching build means process isolation, mismatched build means Hyper-V isolation.